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Cisco and China Team Up on Massive Surveillance Project

Recent tech sector black sheep Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), seemed to have few prospects in its pipeline for growth, but today’s report that the company is one of several Western technology outfits poised to begin work on a massive, new surveillance projects in China changes all that. Should the plan come to fruition, the goal is to implement a citywide network of around half-a-million camera in the city of Chongqing over the coming two to three years. The camera would be used by the government to alert officials of crime, traffic or protests and would be called “Peaceful Chongqing.” The surveillance network is among the largest and most high-tech projects of its kind both in China and the world. Measures like this have received criticism from other nations who disagree with the invasion of privacy and the government’s enforcement of political dissent as a crime. Disregarding the political implications of such a program; however, the camera installations, because of their major size could be a boon for the struggling Cisco and the other companies, like Hewlett-Packard (HP) who are thought to be involved in this project.

Cisco for its part is speculated to be providing networking equipment that is vital to operating the colossal surveillance systems, according to the Wall Street Journal. The networking equipment appear to side-step U.S. prohibition on selling crime-control products to China instituted following Tiananmen Square. IN spite of the

In spite of the new development at the company and profit potential it presents, shares of the company continue to trade near their 52-week lows and continued to fall today.

Another company that many thought would struggle to recover to highs; Netflix (NFLX) has disproved its retractors and reached its all time high today after gaining $17 or more than 6 percent on the news that it would expand its streaming video service to an additional 43 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America in late 2011. Earlier in the year it had seemed that Netflix has already saturated its target audience and there was not much room for growth. This latest development, which expands on U.S. services would provide that; however.

The move is larger than anyone expected but some are continuing to caution that there is no guarantee that Netflix will be profitable in the new markets. Investors; however, appear convinced that Netflix will thrive internationally.

Apple (AAPL), which is another company that has been doubted after the company rretreated from all-time highs earlier in the season, was also headed higher today after the newest details of handset sales. Apple was the premier gainer in overall U.S. handset sales on a percentage basis according to a report from comScore today. Meanwhile, for the same period of time Google‘s (GOOG) Android operating system accounted for the most smartphone platforms in the U.S. by increase in market share on a percentage basis. Shares of Google have also been pushing up on the news. Ken Sena of Evercore Partners boosted his rating on Google to overweight from equal weight and raised his price target on the company’s shares to $670 from the current level of $620.

Flash-memory developer SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) also benefitted from a ratings rate after a Deutsche Bank analyst raised his rating on the stock from buy to hold.

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